The ‘End times’? What? Really? Again?

The ‘End times’? What? Really? Again?

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There’s a lot of noise at the moment.

It can be hard to hear the Voice of Nature amongst all of the shouting voices.

As I read the news this morning I was informed about all of the ‘uncertainty’ in the financial markets. Property plans shutting down, investors feeling concerned, a lack of ‘confidence’. There are those who feel that this is all a good thing. That the markets, including the housing markets, need to be corrected. It reminded me of the great song by Chris Wood called The Grand Correction.

I hope you listened to that. Recorded quite a few years ago the song holds a lot of truth, as music often does.

One of the things I’ve noticed over the years is when things get tough, people look to their spirituality to help them through. It’s a natural thing for us to do. My Druidry needs to help me be a more balanced and connected human being, but it also gives me the tools I need to be able to step out of the noise and literally see the woods for the trees. This ability to have a foot in both worlds is invaluable.

Then there is the Otherworld.

I’ve heard some say that the veil between the worlds is thinning again. That there is already some ‘bleed’ between us and this is causing more people to have unexplainable experiences. There have always been those places where the Otherworld feels closer, but I have read and heard of many more strange encounters than usual. I really don’t want to get bogged down in the idea of some Pagan ‘End times’ theory. I’m sure if you asked people from every age past there would be those who said theirs was the worst. People who lived through the two World Wars, civil wars, famine and the plague, invasions, I’m sure there were many in those times who thought the world was coming to an end. But it didn’t. So I don’t think this apparent ‘bleed’ is anything directly to do with politics, terrorists, or the state of the financial industry.

However, like I said above, when people are stressed they tend to turn more to their spiritual paths, reaching out for stability, connection, reassurance, community. If our ears are yearning to tune out the noise of the human world, it goes that we will probably hear the songs of the Otherworld within the sounds of the moving leaves. If our eyes are turning away from newspapers and Facebook we are more likely to see the invisible hands touching the corn field, or the strange figure standing behind the standing stone. I think those things have always been there, it’s just that more of us are noticing them because we are open to them.

So no End Times here.

The Winter Solstice always follows Samhain.

11 responses to “The ‘End times’? What? Really? Again?”

  1. “The Winter Solstice always follows Samhain.”

    What a lovely closing line and message of hope. Blessed Be

  2. Thank you for your observation. When the going gets tough, we need to see beyond the difficulties of the moment. Perhaps the thinning veil is not so much harbinger of difficulty but an opportunity to resolve our problems using a different perspective.

    • I have always found that in difficult times the diamonds come near to the surface of the shit. Perhaps it’s got something to do with the intensity of emotion that occurs in tough times, which in itself is an opener. Anything can open you up.

  3. thank you so much. This is exactly the message of hope and reconnecting I needed today. You are wonderful. Blessings to you all.

  4. Thank you, Damh, I appreciate this message of balance and perspective, injected into an often (of late) frantic cultural discourse. The “apocalyptics” are, I suspect, motivated in part by fear, but also, seeing the corruption within our culture, having a wish to see that enormous and moribund edifice crumble and fall to the ground. I confess I have had the same sort of thoughts creep into my consciousness on occasion myself, seeing a culture that on the most basic level, celebrates avarice and ruthlessness, and at the popular culture level glorifies violence. There is, besides that, an obsession, unhealthy to extreme, with owning manufactured things, most of which are made using processes that are destructive to the planet.

    I know it’s easy to fall into the trap of dwelling on a wish that it would all just come to grinding halt. Fortunately, that’s not likely to happen, but a descent is inevitable, though likely to be gradual. We won’t see the bottom of that slide in our lifetime, unless some enormous catastrophe occurs, which at this stage doesn’t look particularly likely. The technological capabilities we have may well shield us from the worst effects for a bit longer. That is a good thing, because a sudden collapse would find the majority of people completely unprepared to cope, and massive violence would be likely, for the simple reason that their are so many people on this planet, and they would all be competing for a suddenly very limited supply of food, water, and other very necessary items. So in fact the wish (however unconscious) for collapse is wishing for the worst possible thing that could occur, not just for humankind but for the rest of the animal kingdom as well: large numbers of people, unable to farm, would likely hunt whatever they could find, likely to extinction.

    Like John Michael Greer, I do believe there’s a unique opportunity opportunity for Druids (and other Pagans as well) to begin learning skills, saving and sharing important knowledge and saving the best of culture and the arts, so that the most important things are not lost. We could become caretakers of knowledge and skills, and then when needed teachers, to help many others to adapt to increasing resource scarcity, and the need to change what the focus of culture is going to be. Here in the US, at least, that aforementioned culture of violence is likely to aggravate the difficulties we will face during our descent.

    As for the thinning of the veil, I have read that can happen at great pivotal moments in the planet’s timeline – it doesn’t necessarily signify an apocalypse. I’m sure that Dionne Fortune, et al, who worked together during the 2nd world war to keep Britain safe, would have a lot to say (beyond what she already has shared) about that phenomenon. So from my point of view, rather than standing on street corners with signs saying “the end is near”, we should pick up our books, pens and tools and work to play an integral role in trying to minimize the pain that humans and other creatures will suffer over the coming century and beyond. This could be our “great work”, if only we will rise to the occasion.

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